How often do you get treated in the same places every single time you visit your practitioner? Sick of doing those same exercises that don’t seem to be making a difference? Lower back pain can come from the simplest places and be corrected easily through removing some simple bad habits that we may have picked up.
Sitting incorrectly on unsupportive couches/chairs is something we see often and can play a major role in your low back pain. Often this results in you constantly straining your back the same way over and over wondering why therapy just doesn’t seem to help.
Our core structure is held together by strong muscles that are designed to do a lot of work. Major muscles including rectus abdominus, obliques, Transverse Abdominis, quadratus lumborum and gluteal muscles. These muscles ensure that the pelvis is held up correctly and moves in the appropriate manner.
There are many mistakes we see with people sitting. Base of the chair tilted backward rather than forward, chairs too high or too low and backrests too far back are just a a couple things we see causing issues daily in our office. Most people are somewhat aware of these things.
Couches though are a whole new ball game. Most people when sitting on couches have their favourite spot. The constant weight on the same spot can lead to softening of the base cushion reducing support, but this is not the biggest problem we see.
Picture yourself on your favourite spot. What are you doing? For most, they are usually leaning on the arm rest or laying down sideways supporting their weight on an arm bending their spines like a banana!
The result of this is the need for the body to engage the core to stabilise your pelvis. This constant contraction over time can lead to fatigue and muscle strain patterns.
To prevent this, you need to keep your pelvis level and sit all the way back into your seat allowing pressure to be dispersed across your legs and not just on your sit bones.
Whilst we all enjoy that lounge around feeling to get away from gravity, try elevating your feet. Doing this will surprisingly change that gravity fatigue feeling AND prevent you from leaning as well. This simple little trick is often enough to prevent recurrent core strains that lead to dysfunction and constant re-injury allowing you to get back to being happy and having fun.
